In the mix: 'Behind closed doors, we're all home baking'

WITH the sleet lashing at the windows, the long, dark nights, the freezing temperatures . . . it's no wonder that at this time of year comfort food is on most people's menus.

The festivities of Christmas may be in the past, but that doesn't mean that we're ditching the cakes for crackers and the sweets for salad. In fact, if the BBC is tapping into a rather sugared zeitgeist with its Baking Made Easy series which starts on Monday, it would appear that behind closed doors, we're all indulging in the guilty pleasure of home-baking.

A recent poll of 2000 adults found that 28 per cent bake from scratch at least once a week, with Victoria sponge cake being a favourite, followed by cupcakes and Yorkshire puddings.

Perhaps it's a desire to save money or just a trend for nostalgia, but rather than just deck out our homes with Cath Kidston florals and our kitchens with pastel accessories, we're also now filling what were once solely decorative cakestands.

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Whatever the reason, home-baking is definitely on the menu, which is music to the ears (or should that be a cinammon-scented aroma to the nose) of Lothian celebrity baker Lea Harris. Lea, who appeared on last year's Great British Bake-Off competition, has been baking for more than 40 years, and believes that the current interest stems from a desire to get "back to basics".

The 52-year-old from Danderhall says: "I think a lot of people are fed up with buying cakes from supermarkets which are full of sugar but not much flavour, and there's a hankering for the things that their grandmothers made.

"And programmes like the Great British Bake-Off have catapulted baking into the forefront again because it is easy, it is pleasurable, it can be done with children, and you do it mostly for others, which is always a good feeling. For me it's a solitary pleasure, I always bake by myself, but it's the giving of the goods at the end which is the best thing."

For proof of the baking boom, just look at Edinburgh's branch of John Lewis where Catherine Young, section manager of kitchenware, reports: "We are continuing to see strong sales of home-baking products. The KitchenAid Mixer was a top Christmas seller, with sales up over 200 per cent on last year.

"We have seen a huge rise in sales of products like cupcake stands. Icing sets and cookie cutters aimed at children have also been selling well."

Certainly cupcakes have become extremely fashionable, particularly after Sarah Jessica Parker wolfed them down on Sex and the City. Even traditional three-tiered wedding cakes have been replaced in the popularity stakes by huge cupcake stands. They are, some say, the baked and ironic response to post-feminist culture.

That might be taking baking a little too seriously, but one thing is for sure, baking is good business. Tearooms like Loopy Lorna's Tea House in Morningside, Miss Bentley's in Juniper Green, Roseleaf in Leith and Eteaket on Frederick Street are booming. And according to food writer Joanna Blythman, Loopy Lorna's, for instance, is successful not just because of a "nostalgic landscape of tiffin, buttercream sponge and coconut macaroons" but also "the crockery, the old bone china that your granny threw out".